Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Why J's Theater + Rambles + Poem: Erik B. and Rakim

Last year, a colleague asked me why I blogged. My immediate response focused on the discipline of blogging--which was an explicit aspect of my first year of blogging, as I'd set the task of blogging every day if possible for one straight year, and nearly made it--and as another, immediate means of personal expression, and left it at that. But really, when I think about why I continue to blog, it's really because I want to initiate conversations, thoughts, responses, of the sort that I rarely enjoy these days outside my classes.

When I entered academe as a teacher, one of the things I was really hoping for was to engage in conversations not only with my students, undergraduate and graduate, which do occur and are very productive, but with colleagues, both in the areas I'm directly interested in and outside it. I do occasionally have opportunities to chat with some of my colleagues, but when we are not all zooming back and forth with work like drones (because the university likes to keep us very, very busy, for most of the year), so many of our conversations revolve around university business--bureaucratic issues, administration, and so on--and don't touch upon any of the countless other topics I'd love to talk about, especially creative or intellectual ones.

It was this desire for a different kind of intellectual experience that once led me to propose to Ronaldo Wilson that we found a school, and that was an exciting idea--and one of my friends of college, Miguel Herrera, tried a few years ago to get me to work with him on something a lot more informal, but I couldn't swing the fact that I'm in Chicago most of the year and he's in New York--so these kinds of things probably aren't going to happen anytime soon. I am still on one or two listserves--far fewer than years ago--with people who affiliated with particular organizations like Cave Canem or Fire & Ink, or animated by specific topics like sports and so on, but I envisioned this space--a theater, in the oldest sense--as forum for exchanges that crossed the usual boundaries, barriers and dividing lines. (Is that a mixed metaphor?) Or a crossroads, to put it another way, where I'm sort of sitting in the somewhere near the center, and people steadily come through, stop and stay for a little bit--and keep coming back.

I've greatly appreciated the responses I've gotten (and since February, a month in which I simply could not post because I was daily trying to dig myself out of an ever-towering cave of fiction manuscripts, it's been two years), and I do hope readers keep reading and keep posting. Which depends on my continuing to post--and post interesting things. I really do value the responses a lot, as I hope I make clear.

Now, back to the unscheduled programming:

Earlier this evening I saw the rapper Akon on BET (yes, I do watch it) talking about the differences between growing up in Africa and the United States. But only yesterday I learned, to my surprise, that while he is of Senegalese ancestry, he's also a native of St. Louis--Missouri, not Senegal. And grew up Jersey City! Go figure. I guess there was a reason I was able to get past the whininess in his voice. He appeared to be implying that he grew up, however, on the other side of the Atlantic, but then he was suitably vague, so I guess he was speaking in general terms about this particular contrast (which perhaps shouldn't be so easily generalized, given the vastness and diversity of Africa, a continent, vs. the huge and diverse US, a country) than about his own experience.

Speaking of BET, has anyone else been watching Season 4 of College Hill? Why, oh why can't these young Black people act like they have (any) good sense? Why do they have to keep segregating themselves into the Cali (California) and VI (Virgin Islands) camps? Why are thye so hot in the pants and never seem to have a book nearby (yes, I know this is to a great deal a result of the editing, but still--wouldn't they and BET do everyone a service by showing these young people actually in classes and studying)? Why did two of the young women, Vanessa and Krystal, have to have a throwdown (which included Krystal beating Vanessa with a pump)? Why did Krystal have to list Osama bin Laden and Hitler as people who didn't deserved to be attacked as part of her utterly jawdropping response? (Double Hunh??) Why are nearly all of them (except the athlete "Chicki") behaving half the time as if they're auditioning for a very bad minstrel show? And to top it off, why does BET have to run The Players Club, which I think is some programmer at that station's favorite movie, so often, and especially before College Hill? Yes, I know, I sound like someone's grandparent!

Speaking of rap and the recent Imus controversy, I thought Kelefa Sanneh's article, "Don't Blame Hip Hop," in today's New York Times offered a useful summary of the brouhaha, a discussion of Russell Simmons's proposal to snuff out the problematic awful words, and some real insight, particularly on the issue of widespread media focus and displacement of criticism on hiphop without any real discussion of some of the most popular current hip hop artists and the specific language and discourse of their raps (cf. Akon, but also Huey, Crime Mob, Mims--and I'd add Nas, DJ Khaled, Lupe Fiasco, Dem Franchise Boyz, T.I., etc.). Can I add once again that in addition to the first statement by Imus that everyone has fixed and fixated on, his executive producer, Bernard McGuirk, also used the highly offensive term "j" word, which I cannot recall anyone in hip hop bandying about, but perhaps my knowledge of hip hop really is as limited as I imagine it is, so please do enlighten me. At any rate, I'm some what amazed by the collective media erasure of this second offensive term, as if by simply ignoring it--and writing it out of the record--it would disappear, and thus enable the shifting and shifty critiques of everyone and everything but Imus himself that have followed. Strange.

On a completely different note, I want to publicly thank Deborah Hoffman, who responded to my post last year (or was it two years ago), about Vladimir Sorokin's Goluboe Salo (Lavender Lard--she suggests that "lavender" is a more appropriate translation than "blue") by kindly sending the first few pages of an English translation of the novel that she worked on and a paper that she wrote with Nadezhda Korchagina, which appeared in Ohio Slavic Papers (8, 131-148, 2006), entitled "Notes Towards a Postmodern Translation: 'Translating' Sorokin's Goluboe Salo." I've only had an opportunity to skim the paper, but after reading the first few pages of the translation--and then looking at the Russian text again today at the university library--I really wonder whether the right-wing protesters whom this text so vexed actually read the book. Because seriously, it looks like a doozy, as in, a real challenge to make one's way through. By comparison, Houellebecq's perverse post-modern fantasy, The Possibility of an Island, is as transparent and limpid as New York tap water. In the opening three pages of Lavender Lard (which I saw in French translation as Le lard bleu while in Paris), Sorokin's "Russian" includes words and phrases in English, Chinese, French, Sanskrit, and an invented lexicon--and I had to reread it repeatedly to get even a hint of its gist. Hoffman and Korchagina point out in their paper that the opening pages are parts of letters that a gay scientist, Boris Glogger is writing to his lover, letting him know that he's working on a top secret project that entails the cloning of famous writers--Akhmatova ("Akhmatova-5" and "AAA"), Nabokov ("Nabokov-7"), etc.--with the clones producing the infamous lavender lard process as a result of their writing. The texts they produce are "useless byproduct[s]," permitting Sorokin to draft parodies of these noted Russians' styles. None of this seems to have set off the right-wing nationalists, though; it was the scene of sadomasochistic sex involving a clone of Stalin and a clone of Kruschchev that led them to file a criminal complaint that he was promoting homosexuality and pornography.

(Let me note that Hoffman and Korchagina go on to talk quite productively about the relationship between translation, cloning, and postmodernism, Sorokin's parodic play on and in forms, styles and discourse, and the cultural offense he risks, as well as the untranslatability of (so) much of it, among other things, while posing necessary questions about the challenges they faced as they worked their way through the text: here is one example from the text, the first translation by Hoffman, the second by Korchagina:

Mmm hmm. But again, I wonder, did the Moving Together protesters really read all the way through to that moment in the text, or did they just fly off the handle, like right-wingers over here do after not reading a text or attending an art exhibit, after hearing someone else describe the scene?

For those in New York or Austin, you will be able to see Mr. Sorokin in the flesh, because he (and Alain Mabanckou, and quite a few others) will be participating in this year's PEN World Voices festival):

Since I've mentioned hip hop, here's a piece that I've always thought was poetry, "My Melody," from Erik B. and Rakim's first album, Paid in Full (1987), one of my favorite rap albums of all time. Those around during that era may remember it well for the meteor (see, I'm keeping with Sorokin theme, but turning it on its head!) that it was. "The melody that I'm stylin, smooth as a violin / Rough enough to break New York from Long Island...." Yes, indeed. Oh, and no mention of the "h" word, the "n" word(s), or the "j" word, by the way.

MY MELODY

Verse One:

Turn up the bass, check out my melody, hand out a cigarI'm lettin knowledge be born, and my name's the RA-k-i-m not like the rest of them, I'm not on a listThat's what I'm sayin, I drop science like a scientistMy melody's in a code, the very next episodeHas the mic often distortin, ready to explodeI keep the mic in Fahrenheit, freeze MC's and make em colderThe listener's system is kickin like solarAs I memorize, advertise, like a poetKeep you goin when I'm flowin, smooth enough, you know itBut rough that's why the middle of my story I tell E.B.Nobody beats the "R", check out my melody...

Verse Two:

So what if I'm a microphone fiend addicted soon as I singOne of these for MC's so they don't have to screamI couldn't wait to take the mic, flow into it to testThen let my melody play, and then the record suggestThat I'm droppin bombs, but I stay peace and calmAny MC that disagree with me just wave your armAnd I'll break, when I'm through breakin I'll leave you brokeDrop the mic when I'm finished and watch it smokeSo stand back, you wanna rap? All of that can waitI won't push, I won't beat around the bushI wanna break upon those who are not supposed toYou might try but you can't get close toBecause I'm number one, competition is noneI'm measured with the heat that's made by sunWhether playin ball or bobbin in the hallI just writin my name in graffiti on the wallYou shouldn't have told me you said you control meSo now a contest is what you owe mePull out your money, pull out your cutPull up a chair, and I'ma tear shit upMy name is Rakim Allah, and R & A stands for "Ra"Switch it around, but still comes out "R"So easily will I e-m-c-e-eMy repetition of words is "check out my melody"Some bass and treble is moist, scratchin and cuttin a voiceAnd when it's mine that's when the rhyme is always choiceI wouldn't have came to ?set? my name ?around the? same weak shitPuttin blurs and slurs and words that don't fitIn a rhyme, why waste time on the microphoneI take this more serious than just a poemRockin party to party, backyard to yardNow tear it up, y'all, and bless the mic for the gods

Verse Three:

The rhyme is rugged, at the same time sharpI can swing off anything even a string of a harpJust turn it on and start rockin, mind no introductionTil I finish droppin science, no interruptionWhen I approach I exercise like a coachUsin a melody and add numerous notesWith the mic and the R-a-k-i-mIt's a task, like a match I will strike againRhymes are poetically kept and alphabetically steppedPut in order to pursue with the momentum exceptI say one rhyme and I order a longer rhyme shorterA pause, but don't stop the tape recorder

Verse Four:

I'm not a regular competitor, first rhyme editorMelody arranger, poet, etceteraExtra events, the grand finale like bonusI am the man they call the microphonistWith wisdom which means wise words bein spokenToo many at one time watch the mic start smokinI came to express the rap I manifestStand in my way and I'll lead a --- words protestMC's that wanna be dissed they're gonnaBe dissed if they don't get from in frontaAll they can go get is me a glass of MoetA hard time, sip your juice and watch a smooth poetI take 7 MC's put em in a lineAnd add 7 more brothas who think they can rhymeWell, it'll take 7 more before I go for mineAnd that's 21 MC's ate up at the same timeEasy does it, do it easy, that's what I'm doinNo fessin, no messin around, no chewinNo robbin, no buyin, bitin, why botherThis slob'll stop tryin fightin to followMy unusual style will confuse you a whileIf I was water, I flow in the NileSo many rhymes you won't have time to go for your'sJust because of a cause I have to pauseRight after tonight is when I prepareTo catch another sucka duck MC out thereCos my strategy has to be tragedy, catastropheAnd after this you'll call me your majestyMy melody...

Verse Five:

Marley Marl synthesized it, I memorize itEric B made a cut and advertised itMy melody's created for MC's in the placeWho try to listen cos I'm dissin ????Take off your necklace, you try to detect my pace??Now? you're ?buggin? over ??? off my rhyme like bassThe melody that I'm stylin, smooth as a violinRough enough to break New York from Long IslandMy wisdom is swift, no matter ifMy momentum is slow, MC's still stand stiffI'm genuine like leather, don't try to be cleverMC's you'll beat the "R", I'll say "Oh never"So Eric B cut it easilyAnd check out my melody....

John, [Had to update to new blogger in order to post]Such richness. I'm grateful that you've continued to blog, I'm always finding so much to think about, and in multiple registers, in your discussions. Regretfully, I haven't been able to engage the blogging process in a number of months. I don't know if I'm just channeling my urges towards written ruminations in other arenas, or I've come to the end of that road. But I'm glad to be able to visit and engage here in your uniquely substantial theater of ideas and critical exchanges. And thanks for the full reprint of "My Melody," and more of your ongoing consideration of questions of translation.

I feel rather crass--in not responding to your meditation on blogging.

College Hill! For some insane reason, I do like this show. It reminds me of my undergrad years, big Island population interacting in all sorts of crazy and productive ways with the Africans and African Americans. (I miss that population here. Amherst allowed me to meet with a few Island people.)

Despite the conflicts, I do like that finally BET is featuring at least one kind of diasporic interaction that extends beyond a guest appearance in a rap song.

Audiologo, I definitely appreciate your dropping in. I hear you about reaching the end of a certain road; I sometimes feel that way, so the posting really is a provisional activity on a certain level. But I treasure your thoughts and responses--which is to say, your reading.

Keguro, I guess I'm still waiting for BET (proper) to engage in any real diasporic approach or exchange. BET Starz long ago did so, showing films on Black-related themes from sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Canada, but BET itself still seems very locked into a narrow perspective, even though it has been a global presence (in South Africa, in the Dominican Republic, etc.) for some time. Its new corporate owners--Viacom--are no more enlightened than its former ones, I think. The current version of College Hill is so disappointing on multiple levels.